April 25

Calcutta or Kolkata. A city known for its food and culture, where hospitality and love are synonymous with lip-smacking grub. Chowmin, fuchka, egg roll, vegetable chop, Moghlai, biryani - the list is endless. Bengalis staying out of the state, when visit their hometown, one of the primary agenda is to scarf down street food. The calorie counts can come later, but the street food cant wait. I don't think we have this many variety of street food anywhere else in the country, which Kolkata has.

The ubiquitous Egg Toast is known by several names in Kolkata. Call it Dim Pauruti, Dim toast, French toast the charm of this simple dish remains unaltered. I think for 25 years of my existence or even more, the only French toast I knew was the egg dipped breads grilled to perfection. And like me most Bengalis of the same era, had the same understanding, before social media told us, French toast was something sweet and cinnamony and was an elite dish!

Growing up in Kharagpur, the only snacks served at our home was the ones made by mom. When we went to Grandpas home during the holidays, then we would get a taste of some of the Kolkata street food like chop and egg rolls bought for the evening snacks. But back at home, it was all home made by my mom. She had become a pro at making different innovative snacks because both me and dad loved to eat. The egg toast or dim pauruti was one of my favorite snacks. And at times I would also ask ma to make the same for breakfast. She cut the bread into 4 pieces and then fried the egg dipped breads. Those squares were delicious with a generous dip into the blood red Maggi Tomato Ketchup and few slices of onion. 

When I went to college, I stayed in a girls PG in Salt Lake Kolkata. We had a set menu throughout the week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since my college was pretty far from the PG, I could never have 3 meals in a day as it was not possible to come back for lunch. Therefore on weekdays I used to eat the lunch for breakfast and then have dinner at night. Thus my weekday breakfast would usually consist of Mach bhat (fish rice) and a serving of veggies and daal. Some of you might think how can we eat so much for breakfast, but when you don't have an option, you get used to it. I still wonder why I didn't think of carrying the breakfast in a tiffin box and could have same for lunch, that way I didn't have to go hungry till dinner. It never occurred to me back then that I could flip the meals and stay full. 

So usually I would end up hungry by the time it was lunch. All my classmates apart from a few boys who stayed in a nearby PG, were staying in their own homes. So they would bring delicious homecooked meals which would fill the classroom during recess. I think that's one time I used to miss home a lot. Most of the days I would go hungry at lunch time as I didn't have a tiffin. and some days if my friends asked me to share their meal I would do that happily. But it felt like an obligation at times, so I turned down most times. My college was considerably new back then, hence the food they served in canteen was very limited. Mostly pre-packed snacks, biscuits and chips. So in the initial college years I never went to canteen.

After 2nd year of engineering, the canteen actually started serving some real food which was made to order. Most of my friends would hang out in the canteen at any given opportunity. But somehow I felt I was bad in a big group and introvert so I avoided going to canteen too. Plus, I had a notion that college canteens were meant for discussing politics and other affairs - which I was totally not interested in. It sounds so funny in my head right now that, I didn't even like to gossip much back then. I just kept to my studies and was a teachers pet you can say. I think I was a little weirdo back then :D

Then one day out of sheer hunger stepped into that place and ordered something which sounded familiar to me - the Dim pauruti. In fact I remember I was so elated to find it on the menu. It instantly reminded me of mom's egg toast. The dim pauruti that the canteen made was no where near to what mom would make, but when you are hungry, any food seems like a gourmet affair. The thick slices of bread dipped in minimal egg and vegetables tasted like an elixir. For the next two years, I was still not a regular in the canteen, but whenever I happened to be there, I would order the Dim pauruti for sure. 

Later on outside of our campus many food stalls came up. It happened when Sector 5 in salt lake saw the rush of development. But by that time we were almost in the fag end of our engineering years and visited college very less. But I remember one of the stalls which served Maggi, had become my personal favorite. But I will reserve that story for another day :)

I tried to recreate those memory filled days through this preparation. During this pandemic situation when you are stuck at home, all those old memories come flooding back unconsciously and make you remember all the bitter-sweet days spent decades ago with people some of whom have faded away with time and some who are still there to remind about the journey you had.

Preparation Time : 5 minutes